We're all winners here

Sally would like you to know that we think you're all winners here. Every one of you...such nice comments! Thank you, thank you! That said, we picked the yarn winners this afternoon. There were 14 comments, and I didn't count Sonya twice, even though she said wonderful things both times. (fair's fair and all that.) I also carefully excluded the 7 of you who have: (choose one)

1. impressive stashes of your own

2. better taste or yarn buying judgement than I do (why did I buy extra in the first place?)

3.perfected the guidelines of the "simplistic life"--you know, the lifestyle that means you don't collect anything extra.

4. incredible restraint.

The professor kindly helped me do the drawing amongst the 6 of you who wanted to "compete." Winners are....DRUMROLL,PLEASE:

Deb and Jan. Please email me your snail mail addresses! Also let me know if you want one bundle over another? (or a trade for some carpet warp? see below...)

Lisa K., you are a runner up! If Deb or Jan change their minds, you're first in line.

Despite perusing my own stash yesterday, I continue to lack yarn buying judgement, mastery of the simplistic lifestyle, or even restraint. Yesterday the professor took me out for lunch. On the walk home, we stopped by a junk store. I came out with three novels, (two by Carol Shields and one by Vikram Seth that was 1,476 pages) and several thousand yards of Maysville carpet warp...made in Maysville, KY and traditionally used for weaving rag rugs. Maysville Carpet Warp comes in 800 yard cones, it's 100% cotton, colorfast, and perhaps fingering to sport weight...but easy to double when knitting. I found white, green, and gold. The cost was hard to beat. $3.25. That includes the three books.

I also seem to want about half the clothes at this place. The catalog came yesterday and well, advertising marketers out there? it worked. I am hiding the credit card until I stop swooning. Even sweater designers want other people's sweaters sometimes...yes, it is irrational. Yes, I can knit those sweaters myself, simply by looking the photos. I am thinking of that, too.

In other news, I canned 7 pints of dill pickles (6 pints of mixture of cuke varieties for color) and 1 jar of okra pickles, cause I had room in the canner. Tomorrow I head on to dilly beans, more okra pickles, and possible grand finale of tomato/tomatillo salsa later in the week.

All this fun stuff -like your comments,pickles, and reading the last HP book, which was great-has made me remarkably cheery. That, and one other thing. I'm getting better at rejection. When I first started freelancing, oy, I got rejections all the time, and they upset me so much...yet most of the time, the rejection has nothing to do with me. It has to do with that burrito the editor ate for lunch. It caused so much indigestion. The publication had no room for my piece...and DING! that editor burps and rejects me. OK. It happens! (damn burrito) Or, maybe it's me, it's my journalistic values or the angle of my article or whatever.

I still get rejections a lot. Mostly, this is now an opportunity to get a better option elsewhere. I get upset about rejection if I mope about it, if I sit around and think it over too much. If I fix any problems and start making more submissions right away? I become positively hopeful. At present, hope prevails. It's a lot better than any of the alternatives.